


es macht „baam!“

by Verbrennung



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: AU, German!Eren, Jean and Ymir are roommates, M/M, Social Media, What is Romance, YouTube, and they're BFFs and actually kind of love each other, awkward references to said social media, because that is best Eren, but he's really just a sweetheart, eren is kind of a Big Deal on the internet, i am also trash, i know nothing about colleges in america, i'm not even sure this is america, idk it really works, jean still skates despite being a junior at college, marco is here though, ok so please don't hate me, ps. smoking is bad for you, sasha and connie and the others are mentioned but don't really have a part i'm sorry, this is trash and cliche, vloggers are people too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 08:25:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3685170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verbrennung/pseuds/Verbrennung
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a boy Jean sees all the time, and he swears he popped up out of <i>nowhere</i>.<br/>He's cute and sweet and Jean kind of falls hard. And as if that didn't already make the boy way out of his league, apparently Eren has a pretty popular YouTube channel, and after Jean makes his debut, a significant number of subscribers that don't appreciate the blonde's sass. Even worse <i>still</i> is that there are some that want to get them together as much a Jean wants them to.</p><p>Or:<br/>A story about a loser boy who meets another cute boy who happens to be kind of a big deal on the internet, and how his lesbian roommate eventually gets him to <i>ask him out</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	es macht „baam!“

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I'd like to start by setting something straight kind of?  
> My summary is terrible - the story is actually less about Eren's "e-fame" and more about Jean crushing on him and the process of Growing A Pair. Eren's made-up fans aren't really involved in the story, whether they love or hate Jean haha!
> 
> Anyway, please enjoy! This is my first fic and I actually have trouble writing alone - I come from an RP background _not_ a fic writing one, so I'm used to having someone to reign me in and work off of. I recently caught the Erejean bug though, and wanted to contribute to the fandom! Since I dont have a partner for this pairing, you have to deal with a fic from me :)
> 
> Uhm, my headcanon Jean and Eren are based on the fabulous sketches by yuki119 on tumblr (if you're reading an Erejean I'm sure you know them, but if not take a look because hng beautiful!) though admittedly my Eren is a little lighter skinned because of my headcanon for his heritage  
> .
> 
> Also if you're the type to like bgm/music recommendations with your fic, I wrote this whole thing while listening to **Cro** , mostly his album **Easy**. It's not the soundtrack or anything because the lyrics don't really apply, but the vibe kind of does. Listen [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPdZAMoHkNY).
> 
> Oh yes, Jean doesn't exactly refer to Ymir in the nicest way, so sorry in advance if that offends people. He does genuinely love her though, it doesn't come from a bad place, and she doesn't consider the words slurs. He's just a silly boy who isn't good at expressing emotions.

  
  
  


There’s a boy Jean sees all the time, and he swears he popped up out of _nowhere_.

Okay, so seeing him all the time is an exaggeration, but it certainly feels like his mysterious, cute ass is haunting him, because whenever he is around Jean can’t help but notice. And he did just _appear_ , but maybe that’s because Jean this year’s class schedule meant he had no one to walk to class with, meaning he actually paid attention to shit around him. Anyway, the point is, the guy is there again, sitting on the grass in the quad with some buddies, laughing as he films two of them doing handstands. Always on his phone or laptop, or with a camera in his hand whenever the blonde saw him.

Was he a film major or something?

It was a question that could wait until he was bored to death in his next class and needed some brain fodder to help him through. That wasn’t for a little while though; he’d arranged to meet Marco out here somewhere early so they could catch up before they inevitably had to suffer through the joys of their architecture major together. He kicks up his board, lifting his sunglasses to scan the area, raucous laughter coming from pretty stranger’s group catching his attention again and oh – Marco was sitting near them on the grass already, waving pleasantly. His old roommate looked like a saint usually, but in that cream cardigan and the sun shining down on him Jean almost couldn’t believe he was actually real, fucking adorable human that he was. “What’s up Frec,” he greetes with a sharkish grin at the nickname, dropping his beaten up skateboard onto the grass before crouching down in front of the other. “Picked a rowdy spot, didn’t you?”

Marco smiled, about to say something, before as if on cue there was a wail from the odd group not twenty yards from them. The two swing their heads to check what’s going on, and – _oh_. Jean stills, because that cute guy is looking his way and they’ve just locked eyes. He’s still filming the group without looking, and Jean raises a brow in reaction to the bald boy who had apparently decided to sit on the wailing girl’s back and give her a noogie. From here, he can appreciate just how tanned the other is, and how cute his messy hair is, and how his brows lift to make his eyes look even bigger when he shrugs and sends an abashed smile his way in something like apology.

“I was here first,” Marco says eventually, and when Jean looks back at him there’s a little gleam in his eye. Apparently, a simple smile was enough to make Jean forget that Marco was there at all for a second. “You don’t seem too bothered about it, anyway.” 

No, he’s not at all, but he just rolls his eyes and sits on his ass, turning his attention back to Marco. “Hey, I brought those notes and the sample plan you wanted to check out,” he announces, successfully changing the subject as he pulls said papers out of his backpack. Marco thanks him and Jean demands that he gets half of the grapes his friend has been munching on as repayment. Naturally, his freckled angel agrees, but draws the line when Jean tugs on his sleeve and requests he hand feed him, throwing a grape at him that hits him dead-on in the eye. His eye is watering, and he can’t open it just yet, but he can’t stop laughing either, because he still has one good eye to see Marco’s mortification at accidentally hurting someone.

  
  
  


\-------------------------------------------

  
  
  


Their class, when they eventually drag their asses to their building, goes by pretty smoothly, except they get an assignment that keeps Jean busy for the next few days. Apparently, he doesn’t seem like the type to care about studying, but in reality he’s one of those dicks everyone in class hates because he does assigned work as soon as he gets it rather than waiting until the last minute. It’s Tuesday morning, and he’s celebrating the fact he doesn’t have to spend another day’s free time in the library, with a black coffee on the outside deck of the campus coffee shop. There’s no one else around, and he’s guessing it’s because it’s not close to lunchtime and everyone who’s made the effort to be on campus this early is in class. Still, it’s nice like this.

His quiet time doesn’t last long though, because the door opens to reveal – yeah, you guessed it – the tanned brunette that literally must stalk Jean or something. He has some kind of freshly-made juice smoothie (because those were healthy and hip or something to people now, right?) in one hand, and the other is holding his phone aloft in front of his face. 

“Morning guys! Got myself some of that awesome apple and mango juice to start my morning right. Hope you have a great day!”

He hasn’t noticed Jean yet, despite the fact he’s only sitting one table away, apparently too engrossed in pressing things on his screen – probably sending that video to whoever it was meant for. 

Because Jean is already a little wired from half a cup of coffee and finishing his assignment early, he decides it’s a good idea to start up a conversation, because if he doesn’t some point _soon_ the other will slip away and he’ll want to kill himself for not taking initiative. “Well,” he begins, mostly because he doesn’t know what the hell to say and it’s actually really awkward revealing the fact you just watched someone film a video message. “That was the nicest, most normal snapchat I’ve ever witnessed.” 

The brunette almost jumps, peering over his phone with big, blue-green eyes (ah, at last, Jean knew the colour) open in surprise. “Oh, uh. Thanks?” Clearly, he feels awkward about it too, and Jean’s somewhat relieved. He smiles, raising his brows at the other.

“Do you always send your friends motivational messages in the morning?”

The boy huffs in something caught between amusement and embarrassment. “Something like that, yeah…” he says with a mysterious little smile, his eyes seeming to light up all of a sudden. “Oh hey, you’re the guy from the other day!” _Yes, I am_ , Jean thinks, and then, _oh my god you remember me?_ “The one who skateboards everywhere. You don’t have it today?”

Wait. Was that an accent? Pretty-Eyes-Tanned-Skin had an accent?!

Adorable, but not the most important thing right now. Carry on the conversation. If he knows about the board, then clearly he’s seen Jean a few times, too. The blonde laughs and nods his head. “Don’t worry, I’ve already been reliably informed it’s uncool and that I should leave my high school days behind me.” He snorted and put down his coffee cup. “And yeah. My evil lesbian roommate hid it in some kind of sick revenge plot because I accidentally saw her girlfriend in a towel, so I’m without my usual transport for a while.” It wasn’t _his_ fault Krista had to walk from the bathroom to Ymir’s room and he’d been playing videogames in the living room, anyway! And then because he suddenly remembered how meeting people is supposed to go – “I’m Jean, by the way. Junior, architecture major.”

The other blinks for a few seconds before laughing, the warm sound filling the space around them. It’s a really nice laugh. “Wow, I have so many questions about that. I’m Eren: E-R-E-N, not Aaron. Language interpretation and translation major, and ah, freshman.” Oh, well that explains the sudden appearance.

Jean couldn’t help but smile along with him. “That’s the whole story, though. She’s pretty protective of her girlfriend. I’ll probably have to do some act of penance to get it back - she’s kind of a huge bitch but I love her. And oh, really? I see you all the time on the quad and you usually have a camera with you, I assumed you were film or something.”

“Oh, ah, no. I make videos about my life, and stuff.” 

Oh, that was… cool. A little odd, but interesting, he guessed. Jean just hums and nods a little, as if he understands and Eren need say no more about it. He wants to ask more of course, but he thinks demanding to know everything about the guy’s life is probably bad etiquette for a first meeting, no matter how curious he is. He’s wondering what to say next when the other checks the time on his phone and speaks up.

“I have to leave for class in a minute. If it’s alright with you, could I have your facebook or something maybe?” That was cute. Eren wore uncertainty well, and even if Jean had wanted to refuse, he wouldn’t have been able to after catching sight of the other’s expression. He naturally agrees right away, taking Eren’s phone and typing his name into the search bar, sending a friend request to himself and wondering how the hell this has all gone so smoothly. Life wasn’t too hard, was it?

  
  
  


\-------------------------------------------

  
  
  


Who the fuck was Jean kidding? Life was _hard_.

He wasn’t the type to use his facebook often, and only utilised it for the basic functions of keeping up with friends from home and having access to his class’ group to keep up with important information. But Jean had opened the site to obsessively look through Eren’s profile pictures more than just a couple of times in the past two weeks, now that they were officially ‘friends’ (of the facebook variety, anyway). And now that he’s sitting next to the other having accidentally bumped into him in the cafeteria this time, he feels like the other /knows/ that he’s been effectively e-stalking him and has been waiting for him to call him out on it for the past fifteen minutes. Trying to hold a conversation under this much stress has been hard, but after a little while, Jean decides if it was gonna happen, it should have happened by now. As it is, they’ve just been talking about normal shit, and Jean is in the clear and has even learnt a few more things about Eren: he’s actually German (hence the accent), but has been living in the States for five years already, is actually tri-lingual since his mother is Turkish, but is learning his fourth language (Spanish) as part of his credits. Definitely in the clear, because you don’t knowingly reveal that much information about yourself to a stalker. Not that Jean _is_ a stalker. 

“So the people you always hang out with are a mix of old friends, classmates /and/ dorm buddies? You’ve done pretty well getting a group like that together,” he says, chin resting in his hand to look relaxed. “You all seem to get on really well from the amount of noise you guys generate.”

Eren laughs, rolling his eyes because he knows after their two chance meetings that Jean likes to be a bit of a dick when he’s more comfortable. “Yeah, it’s really weird, how everyone gets alo-” He pauses because one of their phones buzzes on the table, but it’s actually Jean’s; Marco has liked a picture on Instagram, likely the one of a building he snapped this morning because he liked the lines. “Oh, you have Instagram? You seem the type to complain about it, since you don’t even seem to like to use facebook.”

Jean shrugs, unbothered by the fact Eren had caught a glimpse of the notification and apparently analysed his facebook tendencies, and unlocks his phone to check it. “Yeah. I think it’s actually pretty cool. I mostly jut post the usual random shit, but I like trawling through other people’s shit for cool architecture for my course.” Eren leans over the table to check out his feed and Jean lets him, not particularly shy about that kind of thing. It didn’t take long for the younger boy to meekly ask if it was okay to follow him on the app, and Jean just smiles and says of course, because he likes that Eren apparently wants to be friends with him and enter his boring little life in some way. When the follow notification from ‘erenjaeger’ comes through, Jean follows back before even clicking on the other’s profile, but when he eventually does, two things catch his attention.

First is the thumbnail of a glorious-looking selfie on the first row of pictures – clearly having him on Instagram is going to be way worse than facebook, fuck- and the second is the follower count.

  


  
**150k**  
followers

  
There’s a long pause. Eren realises Jean’s on his profile, and what he’s looking at, and when Jean raises his eyes and gives him a blank look, the other blushes.

“Uh, you have like over a hundred thousand followers,” Jean comments quietly. Eren kind of shrinks.

“Yeah, this is where people usually freak out a little bit.”

Jean snorts. “No shit. What the fuck?” Is Eren some kind of famous child celebrity or something and he’s been oblivious all the time? Has he totally just fucking embarrassed himself?

A bemused smile takes over the brunettes face, and then melts into something like bashfulness. “Yeah. I uh, have a YouTube. I kind of… vlog?”

Oh yeah, there’s a link in his bio. Jean silently puts his phone on the table and his head starts to spin a little. 

“…Well. That explains the camera I always see you with.”

“Mm. …Are you freaking out, then?”

“A little bit, yeah.”

The conversation tapers off then, and Eren, embarrassed and awkward now, says he should probably go and meet up with his best friend, whose class will be finishing up around now. Jean lets him go, sitting there for a little while longer sipping his orange juice, wondering what the fuck just happened.

  
  
  


\-------------------------------------------

  
  
  


Two days pass, and Jean goes to class and hangs out with his friends in the interim, his mindfuck settling into something like quiet disbelief. It’s Friday now, and he’s sitting on a plastic fold-up chair on his balcony in shorts and a Tshirt, beer in one hand and cigarette in the other. The balcony is cramped as fuck, coming out just enough to fit the chair but not leaving much room for his lanky legs, but it’s a warm evening and being out here is kind of nice so he perseveres. His phone is resting on his thigh, open on Eren’s Instagram page as he thinks about how Eren isn’t following many people at all compared to the amount of people that follow him, and how Jean is now one of the selected few. The door slides open as he takes another drag and Ymir comes out in a Zeppelin shirt and a pair of boxers with a beer of her own, and sits herself down on her own chair.

“Jesus Christ Ymir, are those my boxers?” It’s enough to snap him out of his temporary stupor.

The girl waves her hand boredly and takes a sip of her beer. “Yeah, my PJs are in the laundry and I needed shorts so I took these from your drawer. I’m hoping they’re clean.”

“Can you stop going into my fucking room?!” What was with this girl and her disregard for _boundaries_? God, he hated her. “And stop wearing my clothes too, people are gonna think you’re my fucking _girlfriend_.”

There was a pause, before she scoffs loudly, planting her feet on the balcony railing to get comfortable, and Jean bursts out laughing. Yeah, that mistake was never going to happen.

“So what’s up, horseface? You’ve been sitting out here not moving for like half an hour already.” Jean doesn’t need to look to know she’s looking at him out of the corner of her eye, and he chooses not to comment on the fact that it’s a little bit creepy she’s been looking at him through the window. He doesn’t need to answer, because she notices his phone and the profile open on the screen, which snatches up her attention. “Oh? Is that the pretty kid you’re obsessed with? The freshman _wunderkind_ you’ve been chatting to?

It’s Jean’s turn to snort this time. “I bet you’ve been desperate to say that ever since I told you he was actually German. “He gets a shrug in response because he’s not wrong. She snatches the phone from his lap and really, Jean doesn’t have the energy to fight back for it, slumping into his chair and mimicking her posture, taking a sullen drag from his smoke.

“ _Whoa_. What the fuck’s with that follower count?! He famous or something?”

He can only nod. “Yeah. He’s one of those YouTubers, apparently.”

Ymir lets out a low whistle, clicking the link to his YouTube page and flicking through it. “Damn, the number is even bigger here. So he _is_ famous? You can make some serious bank doing that shit, you know.” She’s expecting a reaction of some kind, but Jean just nods his head wordlessly and takes a drink. She watches him for a moment, raising her brow, before flicking back to his Instagram and scrolling through a number of posts. “He’s pretty cute though. I probably would, if I was into guys.”

A sigh leaves his lips and Jean stubs out his cigarette in his makeshift beer can ashtray, and holds out his hand to get his phone back. Ymir, being Ymir, ignores him and checks a couple more of his selfies, going pretty far back, and Jean silently despairs. More than he already was.

“Ooh, this one’s caption is wishing everyone a happy Pride. Looks like your little boy crush is a big fat gay like you, Jeanbo~” That catches his attention, and Jean snatches his phone back with lightning speed, nose almost to the screen as his eyes scan the words. “ _And_ you, and most of the people we know” he mutters in response as he reads, brow furrowing. 

Fuck yeah! Eren was gay.

…But he was also adorable and apparently kind of famous and maybe kind of rich, if Ymir was to be trusted, and therefore totally out of his league. Fuck no!

“Yep,” his roommate says, popping the ‘p’ obnoxiously before taking a drink from her own beer. “ _Totally_ out of your league, I guess.”

He’s not sure if he said it aloud or Ymir’s just using her freaky Jean-mind-reading powers to ruin his life. All he can do is nod miserably, because she is so _right_.

  
  
  


\-------------------------------------------

  
  
  


Somehow, things kind of normalise after a while, and Jean’s not sure /how/ that happened exactly, but he remembers Eren posting a sarcastic comment on something he’d shared, and from there they actually developed some kind of a friendship. Jean discovers that though Eren has the veritable face of an angel, he’s actually kind of an idiot, and that allows him to let his true sarcastic asshole personality out, because as it turns out, they’re _really_ good at bickering with each other, on the internet and in person. It’s not a bad thing, though, because they bond over it and actually enjoy the back-and-forth with each other, and apparently so does everyone else that’s been (un)lucky enough to witness it. Even Ymir had ending up laughing that one day she had tried to crash their ‘lunch date’ (wasn’t a date, sadly), announcing that she’d liked Eren before messing up his hair and bouncing off to make out with Krista or whatever the lesbian dream did in their spare time. Eren’s little freshmen friends weren’t bad either, and it was actually pretty fun being involved in the chaos on the occasions that Eren and his little band of monkeys had decided to join him and Marco on the quad after class.

There was Connie and Sasha, the duo that were responsible for all the ruckus that Jean had noticed that one day those few months ago. They were loud, energetic and a little disastrous, but Jean actually liked them. He’d actually seen the video with the footage of the pair’s ‘competition’ that had taken place since, and it was actually really amusing. Apparently, they were semi-regulars on Eren’s channel. Connie was a strangely fun target to bully too, because he couldn’t measure up to Jean’s teasing the way Eren could, and instead liked to whine about the unfairness of it all. Then there was Armin, Eren’s nerdy little best friend from high school, whose cute appearance couldn’t always hide his sharp wit, and his sister Mikasa who was on a sports scholarship and had picked this school to follow Armin and Eren. Super pretty, but also kind of scary; Jean didn’t like the way she looked at him sometimes. Those were the ones he was most familiar with, but there were a few others he’d heard of or even met a couple times – Reiner, the football player, Bertholdt the photography major, and Annie who was kind of scary in that cold, reserved way, but actually seemed pretty close to the ray or sunshine that was Eren Jaeger. Then again, Jean was pretty sure he had a complex about women after Ymir barged her way into his life and decided to stick around just to ruin it.

“-ean? Are you listening?”

The answer to that was ‘no’, and it was probably obvious in the way he blinked out of his thoughts, turning his gaze to Eren with an elegant ‘wuh?’

“Daydreaming about hay again?” Eren asks, sly expression on his face and Jean huffs, swatting at his dumb face before taking another swig of his coffee. Too early to give a snarky response to horse jokes. “Well, I was _saying_ that Pride is soon.” His expression changed to something like apprehension, and Jean just looked at him with a little shrug like ‘and?’. “Will you be going?” he asks eventually, snapping the case of his phone off and on in what was apparently a nervous tick of his.

“Oh. Yeah, probably. With the dyke duo” a name Ymir had happily dubbed Krista and herself, and Jean had taking to using it, too, “and maybe Marco if he’s not at work. Or going alone with Thomas.”

Eren bobs his messy head of hair happily, clearly happy with the confirmation. “Cool. We’re all going too, we should all hang out!”

“Hm. Depends. Are you gonna be filming it all day?” Being in Eren’s videos was something Jean had managed to avoid so far. He’d learnt a lot about what Eren did, what the process of filming and editing and uploading was like, the stuff he had to manage online, and around how much he earned (enough to be jealous of but he wasn’t loaded like Jean had feared), but it wasn’t something he was particularly interested in being involved in. It meant he could push that aspect of Eren’s life to the back of his mind and pursue a normal friendship (and yeah, only that unfortunately) with him. He didn’t think Eren minded. If anything, maybe he was kind of relieved. Apparently whenever people found out about his ‘career’ they were suddenly _very_ interested in becoming his friend. It must have sucked.

“Well, I’ll be filming parts, yeah.” It was his chance to make an actually kind of interesting video rather than his usual shit after all. “C’mon. You don’t have to be in it if you don’t want to. It’s not like it’s that big of a deal if you are though, it’d probably only be a couple of seconds.” (He’s not going to tell Jean he actually kind of wants him in his videos, because he’s cool and funny and handsome and yeah, maybe Eren wants to show off his new friend a little bit.)

Jean just sighs and slips his sunglasses back on, pushing away his empty cup. “Fine, we’ll meet up with you guys. But I’m making it clear _now_ that I take no responsibility for anything Ymir, _or_ Ymir and Krista, say or do on camera.” He can just imagine it now but well, that’d be Eren’s problem, and just another day of regular hell for him. Judging from the bright boy’s laugh and strangely adorable victory shake, he was fine with that.

  
  
  


\-------------------------------------------

  
  
  


Pride rolls around and everyone is out in full-force, enjoying the party atmosphere in the city regardless of age, race, gender or sexuality. It’s been a great day so far, even if Jean was the third wheel to Ymir and Krista (as usual). When they weren’t PDAing it up they were actually great company, though. The parade had come and gone already, and they’d watched it with raucous laughter and cheering - in between their ‘drink breaks’ which actually took up more time than the actual viewing of the festivities - so they were happily buzzed as they moved over to the city park, where half the population had seemed to set up camp between the various food vans and booths set up for the event. At some point earlier in the day, Jean had acquired a white sailor’s hat from a lovely group of men that had tried to lure him into the parade, making Krista laugh and say that paired with his staple wayfarer sunglasses and white tee he looked like the lovechild of a drunk sailor and a rockstar. That seemed cool enough to him in his inebriation, and besides she didn’t look all that put together either, red feather boa around her neck and messy blonde hair making her look like a cute, young Courtney Love. Ymir was leading their tiny group of three through the crowd, using the text from Eren on Jean’s phone to navigate them to the happy little gang that were lolling around somewhere, wearing her usual attire but with a smattering of shiny silver glitter over her freckled cheeks and a Pride flag draped over her shoulders like a cape.

As it is, Jean is too busy helping Krista move through the small gaps between sitting groups while Ymir blazes the way ahead, but from the sounds of her jovial shouts (loaded with cursing, as was her way) they’ve found them. Soon after, Krista is pulled from his guiding grip with a laugh, and he rolls his eyes at Ymir as she plops the two of them down. He spots a mop of brown hair and drops himself down beside Eren, nodding in greeting and not immediately noticing the camera in his hand. “And we have more people,” he says to the lens, smiling as their volume as a group goes up a couple of levels thanks to Ymir taking charge of the conversation and telling them about the sailors Jean had ‘made friends with’.

Said blonde was busy lighting a cigarette when he eventually realised Eren was _vlogging_ , to which he snorts in derision. 

“And, yeah! This is Jean, my previously-mysterious now-just-a-horseface skateboarding campus friend that I mentioned before,” Eren announces, leaning to the right so that presumably Jean is in the shot. “I don’t wanna be in a video, Eren,” he complains, giving the other a side-eye though admittedly it wasn’t exactly noticeable with his sunglasses still on. 

“Aw come _on_ , just this once. Your little hat looks so cute all crooked like that, I want everyone to see!” Jean frowns around his cigarette, about to complain, when Eren cuts him off again. “This is your big introduction to everyone watching! Do you have anything to say? I can always cut it later, don’t worry.”

Jean contemplates it, exhaling smoke. He’s kind of drunk, so he decides to roll with it just this once. Maybe then Eren will never bother him about it again. “Alright,” he sighs, pointing at the camera. “Turn off your computers and go _outside_ ” he says. “Stop watching loser German boys on the internet and live your own lives.” Eren just laughs in astonishment, probably thinking that he should have expected that. “And don’t smoke, it’s bad for you.”

“Thanks Jean, that was enlightening, really.”

“Now turn that thing off and be a normal person, _god_.”

  
  
  


\-------------------------------------------

  
  
  


Jean is absolutely horrified to find out a week later that _all_ of that apparently made the final cut to Eren’s Pride vlog. He doesn’t even remember saying that shit, and he was clearly more than a little drunk. It had to be a dream. A nightmare.

Yet here he is, unfortunately awake and slack-jawed in front of his laptop while Ymir laughs and laughs until her chests hurts, somewhere over his shoulder.

“Is he not supposed to ask for my permission to include that are something. Isn’t this _illegal?_ Doesn’t this breach my human rights or something?!” He asks desperately, spinning around in his chair to give Ymir a pleading look. Being the cold-hearted bitch she is, that just makes her laugh harder.

“Maybe? But it’s _Eren_. Like you could ever get seriously mad at him.”

Ah yes, Eren. Spawn of the devil, clearly.

“I look like an idiot.” It’s a slow statement of realisation before Jean abruptly gives up on life and drops his head to the desk.

“Actually, strangely enough, I think you look pretty cool. And Eren’s right, you look adorable in that sailor’s hat. I’m still pretty sad about Sasha actually setting fire to it a little while later.” Jean was too, he’d really been feeling that hat. And then he’d _really_ been feeling it, when it was hot and well, kind of on fire. That whole evening had been a time of drunken confusion and oh-my-god-is-this-actually-happening moments –apparently a common theme when around Eren and his friends.

Ymir’s fully leaning over him now, scrolling through the comments now the video has come to its dramatic conclusion: Jean accidentally possibly offending half of the youtube population by inferring the vlogging lifestyle wasn’t normal (well, it wasn’t, was it?) “Dang, have you read the comments? They’re nearly all about you, Jeanbo.”

No, he hadn’t, and no, he didn’t want to know what they said. Ymir told him anyway.

“Let’s see…  
_‘What an asshole.’_  
‘What’s with the dumb hat?’  
‘He’s cute!’  
‘Smoking is GROSS’  
‘I bet he thinks he’s really cool in those sunglasses LOL’  
‘He’s a dick I like him’  
‘Haha the sass! Can we keep him Eren? PLEASE’  
‘Those things will kill you, man’  
‘EREN YOU DON’T SMOKE DO YOU? PLEASE DON’T SMOKE!!’  
‘Am I the only one who thinks he’s kind of cool?’ -‘Yes, you are, ew’  
‘Wow Eren are all your friends as supportive as this guy? If I was there I’d support you 100%!’  
‘NEW OTP ALERT’ - whoa Jean that one has like over 200 likes!”

“Which one? … Huh. What does OTP mean?”

“ _Lord_ ”.

  
  
  


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Jean learns over the next few days from various sources that Ymir had chosen a balanced selection of comments to read – most of the comments were from people who didn’t appear to like Jean that much. He could honestly say that he wasn’t all that bothered by what a bunch of randoms on the internet thought of him. Eren was happy to continue their usual routine, despite the amount of interest he’d had to deal with since his introduction of Jean’s polarising personality to his channel. He’d never had this kind of reaction to anyone else featured, apparently, and he had (embarrassedly) filled Jean in on the OTP thing. That had been weird, especially since the fan’s speculation had encouraged teasing from their actual friends. Like Ymir, who knew about Jean’s pathetic crush on the younger boy and loved to talk about it at any opportunity (thankfully not in front of Eren or his friends, she wasn’t _that_ cold).

It had brought Eren some good publicity to his channel, and though the recognition meant a little more of his free-time outside of class was spent tending to his ‘Online Shit’ as Jean liked to call it, it didn’t seem to affect him or his growing friendship with Jean negatively. In fact, since the worst had happened and Jean had gained ‘haters’ as well as ‘fans’, he was less bothered about the video thing in general. If Eren wanted to film content while he was around he’d let it happen, and if he happened to be on camera he was going to be his candid asshole self.

And that’s how Eren’s view count started growing more and more each day, fuelled by whatever publicity he was getting on tumblr that was bringing new viewers to his channel, and how Jean became the unwilling owner of an Instagram account with thousands of followers.

Luckily, people who disliked him didn’t care enough to ‘abuse’ him much on social media, but it was still weird posting a picture like he usually would, and thinking about how many people would see it.

  
  
  


\------------------------------------------- 

  
  
  


“So Eren, apparently people write stories about us getting together.”

“O-oh, uh, yeah…. It’s quite a big thing, apparently? Weird, right?”

“Yeah, weird.”

  
  
  


\-------------------------------------------

  
  
  


“Oh for god’s sake Jeanbo, you’re pathetic!”

Jean knows he is, he doesn’t need Ymir to tell him that, or for Krista to nod in agreement between them. The three of them are crammed onto the balcony, sitting on the floor because they’d had to sacrifice the chairs in order to fit the third person out there. He’s been texting Eren all night and sighing over his one-sided crush, and clearly Ymir is sick of such ridiculous behaviour. Krista pats his knee and hands him a cookie, which he eats miserably.

“Seriously, you guys have been dancing around each other since you first met. He’s _never_ going to make the first move, so as the older guy in this _‘relationship’_ ” - Jean glares at her mocking tone - “you have to do it.”

“But what if-“

“Jean,” it’s Krista speaking up, and the blonde turns to look at her because unlike Ymir, she’s trustworthy. And sane. And not a bitch. “He has stars in his eyes whenever he looks at you. He entertains the thoughts and comments of the people that _ship you_. He’s not going to reject you.”

He’s still not sure about it. Usually, this kind of thing wouldn’t bother him but there’s something about _Eren_ that would make taking a chance and being wrong about this literally worse than death. Eren’s dark skin and dark hair and bright eyes and smile and laugh and voice— Knowing definitively, once and for all, that all of that was unattainable to him if things didn’t go the way he wanted, would suck.

No, they were right. He needed to do something, because right now, Eren Jaeger was ruining his _life_.

“And his snapchat story is constantly full of your snarky ass these days.”

“You guys have him on snapchat?”

“Of course, it’s hilarious.”

“Fuck the both of you, seriously.”

  
  
  


\-------------------------------------------

  
  
  


“Hey Eren. Do you wanna go for coffee or something sometime?”

“Sure! Me and Armin are hanging out today, if you wanna join?”

“Oh. I was thinking just the two of us… Like a date? Maybe, I dunno.”

“O-okay. Yes, sure. I mean, that would be awesome.”

“Cool.”

  
  
  


\-------------------------------------------

  
  
  


_‘Hey guys, it’s Eren! How are you all doing? I’m sure you’ve noticed that I have a guest – it’s everyone’s favourite horseface!_

_And as you probably guessed from the title, this is the eagerly anticipated boyfriend tag!’_

 


End file.
